Saint Joseph Catholic Church

In a February 13 chirograph, Pope Leo XIV abolished the Pontifical Committee for World Children’s Day, established by Pope Francis in November 2024, with Father Enzo Fortunato, OFM Conv, as chairman.

Pope Leo transferred the committee’s functions to the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, the first diocese established in the United States (1789), has issued a pastoral letter, “In Charity & Truth: Toward a Renewed Political Culture,” for the nation’s 250th anniversary.

The 29-page letter has 22 sections, including “Charity, Unity, and Patriotism – The Witness of Blessed Michael McGivney” and “The Spiritual Crisis Beneath the Political Crisis.”

“May the next 250 years of our nation be marked by greater justice, deeper solidarity, renewed trust, and a profound respect for the dignity of every human person,” he concluded. “May the Church—in the Premier See of Baltimore and throughout the United States—be a leaven of unity and a witness of hope in a world thirsting for both. May God bless you and may God bless the United States of America.”

L’Osservatore Romano devoted prominent front-page coverage in its February 13 edition to the plight of the victims of environmental redevelopment projects in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.

Father Ettore Marangi, who ministers in a Nairobi slum, spoke with the Vatican newspaper about the government’s destruction of makeshift shacks of at least 40,000 slum inhabitants.

Ilaria De Bonis reported:

136 euros: that’s how much a house in Nairobi’s illegal settlements is worth. Or rather, this is the compensation—when it exists, which is almost never—offered by the Nairobi government to citizens who lose their homes, demolished following recent environmental redevelopment projects.

Receiving a sum of money after losing one’s home is, however, a rare exception. More often than not, one ends up on the streets.

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Pope Leo XIV encouraged members of Rome’s Carabinieri (military police) to “rediscover the essence of the Christian message and the style of the early Church, in order to embody them in our very different, and much more complex world.”

“I think of the dawn of Christianity in this city, when the Good News of Jesus began to circulate in various circles, including the army: a new way of living and thinking, a God who is love, mercy, forgiveness; a fraternity among all men and women that transcends every social and ethnic difference,” Pope Leo said during the audience, which took place on February 13 in Consistory Hall of the Apostolic Palace

The Pope added:

Dear friends, you are military personnel and you know well what hierarchy, command and obedience mean. We also use these words in the Church, transformed by the newness of the Gospel.

And, similarly, the Gospel, throughout the centuries, has permeated the structures, criteria, and ways of acting and thinking of the civilizations where it penetrated; it did so not with a violent revolution, but with a peaceful transformation, from within, through consciences, the conversion of hearts.

In this way the Gospel has brought the meaning of God and of humanity everywhere: absolute respect for life and for the human person, along with the worship of God, and Him alone.

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